She came to the United States with $ 300. Now she is part of the NASA Mars mission.

When NASA’s Perseverance rover has landed successfully on Mars last week, aerospace engineer Diana trujillo, who is the flight director on the mission, said in an interview with CBS News that it took him some time to know he had arrived on the Red Planet.

“I was very into the ‘What’s going on? “, Did she say. Then like photos and videos of Perseverance began to shine, it became real.

“Are we safe? I think looking at the picture is when I actually processed that we actually landed,” she added.

The landing only marked the beginning of Perseverance’s shutdown on Mars, but it was instrumental in the historic mission to find life decades ago in the making of Trujillo. His dream of reaching space and wanting to understand the universe came as a youngster in Cali, Colombia. Her parents were going through a divorce and at 17 she decided to move to the United States, arriving with only $ 300 and not speaking English. She worked as a cleaning lady to pay for her education and then joined NASA in 2007.

Trujillo is now part of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab and worked on the team that created the robotic arm that will collect rock samples on Mars. “Understanding if we are alone in the universe is the ultimate question,” she said. “I hope that within a year of surface operations on Mars, we can answer this question soon.”

She said her early experience as an immigrant motivates her to always give the best of herself, especially when she comes from a country with limited opportunities.

“I saw it all present itself as an opportunity,” she said. “I didn’t see it as’ I can’t believe I’m doing this job at night ‘or’ I can’t believe I’m cleaning. I can’t believe I’m cleaning a bathroom. “at the moment. ‘ It was more like, “I’m happy to have a job and to be able to buy food and have a house to sleep in.” And so, I think all of these things make me, and even today, me. help to see life differently. I see it more like every moment that I need to be present because every instance matters. “

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Part of the reason she wanted to get into space was to prove that some family members were wrong.

“I wanted my – especially the men in my own family – to recognize that women add value,” she said, adding that “it just wanted to prove to them that we matter.”

However, her motivations would change later as a student. She remembered going online to declare her major at the University of Florida and not knowing what she wanted to do. When Trujillo reached Dean, she saw a magazine that contained images of female astronauts, a space shuttle, and the Earth – and that’s when she chose aerospace engineering as her major. She also noticed that the queue was packed with people who didn’t speak Spanish or appeared to be Hispanic, and that she was one of the few women who stood in line.

“It was very petrifying because you make this enormously long line and every step of the way, you are [thinking] like, “You shouldn’t be here … why are you here,” “she said.

Throughout her career, a similar theme followed: she would be one of the few Latinas to work in the field of science. Now she knows that every time she works as Surface Flight Director for Perseverance, she represents more than herself.

“I know I’m not going to go in alone,” she said. “I walk in this and everything I do, I represent my country, my culture, my heritage, my people, and I have to give my best every time.”

“I can uplift and amplify my culture and all the countries that speak Spanish by sending a message to everyone that we are here, we are present,” she added.

According to the Student Research Foundation, Hispanics own only 8% of the STEM workforce – of which Hispanic women make up just 2%. Trujillo thinks the way to break the glass ceiling is to have more models. This influenced her decision to host NASA’s very first Spanish-language show for a planetary landing last Thursday. The show was called “Juntos perseveramos” or “Together we persevere,” and it garnered over 2.5 million views on YouTube. She even caught the attention of her compatriot and world music star Shakira.

“The more of his, the more Latin engineers and scientists there are, the more likely we are that these children have the chispa, where they say, ‘I want to be that,’ she said.

She believes that greater visibility of Latinos in STEM will allow families to encourage young members to follow these steps, rather than the stereotypical roles that men and women have been asked to follow.

“Abuelas, moms or dads, uncles, los primos, like everyone else has to see that,” she says. “And they have to see a woman in there too. So that they can look to the younger generation and say she can do it, you can do it.”

Trujillo hopes to one day reach space, but feels a special call in helping to attract more women into science and engineering.

“Life has always given me the opportunities that are right for me, so we’ll see what comes next,” she said.

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